From its opening pages of magnificent imagery on an icy mountain, Elizabeth Bear sweeps the reader into a world of ravishing detail, in a culture rich with South Asian influences. From the mysterious Dead Man to his companion, the mechanical Gage with an all-too-human heart, to queens who sit uneasily on their thrones, The Stone in the Skull offers an array of bewitching characters. Fueled by a series of dark events and encroaching danger, the characters come together in a web of intrigue, beginning what promises to be a thrilling new epic fantasy series.
I caught up with Elizabeth Bear to talk about her inspirations, the characterizations and themes, and more.
The setting for the Stone in the Skull is unusual in epic fantasy, and you depict it in rich detail. Can you talk about your research and inspirations?
Oh, wow. That gets complicated, but the short form is that the idea for the Eternal Sky series started when a dear friend who happens to be of Indian ancestry mentioned how hard it was for her to find herself in fantasy and science fiction. It's been a running joke between the two of us for over a decade that we're distant cousins, because according to her family records, she's a direct descendant of Genghis Khan by way of his second son, Chagatai Khan--and my great-grandfather was a Ukrainian with Cossack ancestry, which suggests a little Mongolian in me as well. So I decided to write a high fantasy that would be accessible to Western readers, featuring an array of continental Asian and Eurasian influences. It so happened that there was a fantasy world that I had been playing in for some time, though only with short fiction.
My goal was to create a fantasy world that had the same relationship to Asia that most Western fantasy does to Europe. It's not in any way an attempt to be historic or accurate.
So, in the second novel series set in this world, I'm just... continuing, I guess. Telling more stories in which my friends can see themselves, I hope. Making a crack.
I'd really suggest checking out some of science fiction and fantasy's brilliant Indian and Indian-American authors, if you like my work. I can recommend Indra Das, Shveta Thakrar, and Vandana Singh off the top of my head.
A recurring theme in the novel is that women in positions of power face an array of challenges and pressures. Can you talk a bit about your thoughts on this theme? Do you plan to expand on it as the trilogy progresses?
Oh, absolutely. Oddly enough, the book was written in 2015 and 2016, but I think we've seen ample evidence in the past year of the different standards by which women are judged, and the impossible standards we're held to personally and professionally. There's a catchphrase among some women in my industry that I hang around with--"Imagine yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man, and do what he would do."
I'm a woman in a publicly facing position, one that involves some social power. You bet the challenges and pressures, as you so aptly put it, are frequently on my mind. Heck, half the time our existence isn't even acknowledged, or if it can't be ignored it's exceptionalized. And women are so often more or less erased from fantasy narratives, except where they can serve as a love interest or a hard-bitten swordswoman who Isn't Like Other Girls. And the fact is that women, historically, did many interesting things. Things worthy of being included in narratives.
So... yes. Expect a lot more discussion of women and power
Interestingly, even though this is fantasy, not science fiction, you make a foray here into the ethical and philosophical issues surrounding AI. The Gage is not exactly a robot, but he’s close to it. Did you see an opportunity in exploring what is usually a SF concept in a fantasy setting?
My dirty secret is that I don't see much difference between SF and fantasy. Each of them expects that you will build yourself a set of rules and stick to them; the main differences are in the trappings. My feeling in this directions is probably a direst result of way too much Zelazny growing up... if there is such a thing as too much Zelazny.
So, I actually was not thinking of the Gage in terms of AI or uploaded personality when I wrote him. I was thinking of his in terms of trauma.
But now that you mention it...
Between the powerful women who face unique struggles, the mechanical Gage, and the faceless Dead Man, this seems to be a book about the underside of history—about who is worthy of inclusion, and why. This book expands on the possibilities for the kind of person who might leave a mark in history. Does that sound right to you?
Absolutely. And right on! I mean, my primary goal here is to tell an engaging swords-and-sorcery story, but of course the question of who gets their story told is always critical, isn't it?
Who are some of the writers who have inspired you?
Well, I already mentioned Roger Zelazny... Barbara Hambly, Diane Duane, C. L. Moore, Janny Wurts, Octavia Butler, Fritz Leiber... there's a Clark Ashton Smith homage in the first chapter...
I could be here all day, basically.
What’s next for you?
I've just handed in a space opera entitled Ancestral Night, which will be coming out from Gollancz and Saga in 2019; I'm working on the next Lotus Kingdoms book, The Red-Stained Wings; I'm also writing the next Karen Memory Adventure, Angel Maker, and I'm doing a really cool internet collaboration project with Arizona State University and artist Melissa Gay called Crowdfutures (http://www.crowdfutures.us/), where basically Melissa and I won't know what we're making until the voters tell us...
Busy busy...
